


The feeling is mutual

by CheshireCaine



Series: SportsFest 2019 [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Emotional Constipation from one Touou ace, Ficlet, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fill, Sportsfest 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-04 00:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCaine/pseuds/CheshireCaine
Summary: "Isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?"—Donna Tartt,The Goldfinch





	The feeling is mutual

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doublejoint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/gifts).

> Had fun writing this. Fill for stephanericher's SportsFest quote prompt

Kise always rambled on to any idiot he could find about how seeing Daiki had changed his life, turned him on the track right to basketball. And boy, was that guy surrounded by people _all the time_. Like they thought Daiki existed to shove other people forwards instead of leaving others to tread after his shadow.

Aomine threw the ball from his right hand to the left to the right. Bounced it onto the tarmac, bounced it again. Between his legs and looping around them. Jump, release, didn’t even need to look and _net_.

“Mind if I have a turn?” It was Kise, rolling the ball between both hands. Dropped the ball, looped around his legs, bounced it across the ground between his hands.

“Looks like you want to anyway.”

Kise frowned, but turned away and neatly put away a jump shot.

Aomine didn’t bother seeing where the ball went, just watched Kise make the shot. There was intention in his face. Where the vein in his forehead popped out like a nagging Satsuki. Aomine’s face wasn’t that strained for a warm-up shot.

Kise came back with a smile, like some pup proud it didn’t ram the glass door for once. “Aomine_cchi!_ There’s my favourite senpai.” Kise took pride in being a little shit. “My basketball _muse!_”

Aomine gnawed at the inside of his mouth. “Stop saying shit like that. Don’t you have any shame, moron?”

Kise didn’t quite recoil back but Daiki stilled, in case he really did flee.

“Ya know, I don’t have any patience this morning.” He threw the ball hard enough to wind Aomine if he was a slower dude—_if_.

“Aominecchi, what are you _on about?”_

Aomine scraped his foot against the ground, deliberately moving slow, except for his hands, rolling the ball between them. And Kise _knew_ he wasn’t even thinking about it.

“You’re always making me responsible for you playing.”  
  
“And what about it? You still think I make you look bad.” Kise’s voice wasn’t strained around his smile, but his jaw had tightened enough to make his bared teeth look predatory.

“No. Just.” Stamped at some pebble. “Makes it sound like I did it on purpose. Like it wasn’t you and nothin’ to do with me.” If his chin was any more tucked into his neck, he’d phase through his collar.

Kise snickered. “That’s it?” His eyes scampering to keep hold of Aomine’s.

Aomine shoved the ball at his face.

He tucked it under his armpit. “Why not both? Why do you think I’ve said it so many times? Mythologised it. Wrapped my skill up in the story. So people don’t forget. So I never can.” Kise smiled for real this time, executing that gorgeous curl of his mouth to maximum effect against Aomine, gaping.

“I was kidding about the senpai by the way. You’re a hundred years too early to be calling yourself my senior.”

_Oh._ Kise was wrong. It wasn’t that Daiki had affected him so much—it was that Kise had changed where he was headed just as much. His game wouldn’t be the same without him.

And he was doubly wrong about the hundred years.

Aomine grinned to match him. “’Bout to prove you wrong for what, the _thousandth_ time, eh, blondie?”

Kise’s smile ramped up into vicious. “Test me, Aominecchi.”

It was really appealing somehow.

_Oh._


End file.
